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Fed Chair Yellen's assets up 8 percent during 2013

Martin Crutsinger AP Economics Writer

Posted:
08/28/2014 01:54:05 PM MDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's assets rose in value by at least 8 percent during 2013, raising their total to between $5.3 million and $14.1 million, according to her latest financial disclosure released Thursday.

Yellen's biggest asset is a trust fund she set up in 1992 with her husband, George Akerlof, a Nobel Prize-winning economist. The value of the trust fund is estimated at between $1 million and $5 million.

Yellen's assets have likely been driven up in value by a rebounding economy and a rising stock market. In 2012, her disclosure form estimated her assets at between $4 million and $13 million.

Some of Yellen's listed assets belong to her alone; others are co-owned with Akerlof.

The disclosure documents provided only a broad range rather than a specific figure for total assets.

Yellen's disclosure form covers calendar year 2013, when she served as the Fed's vice chair before succeeding Ben Bernanke in February to become the first woman to head the central bank.

One of the assets Yellen listed was a stamp collection, valued at between $15,000 and $50,000, a value that did not increase from 2012. The stamp collection was jointly owned with Akerlof.

Yellen, 68, said she was receiving a pension from the University of California, Berkeley, where she and Akerlof taught on the faculty for many years.

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In a letter in October, when her nomination as Fed chair was pending before the Senate Banking Committee, Yellen said she and Akerlof were both receiving book royalties from Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press and Princeton University Press.

Akerlof is serving as a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund in Washington.

Among the stocks listed on the disclosure form were shares of Conoco Phillips, DirecTV, DuPont, Office Depot, Pfizer, Raytheon, Phillips 66, Norfolk Southern and 21st Century Fox. The disclosure form showed that Yellen held a mix of company stocks and investment funds.